SINGAPORE: Three Sri Lankan men were on Friday (Jul 20) sentenced to eight months' jail for having forged Malaysia visas in their passports.
The men had been arrested on Jun 27 after officers from the Immigration and Checkpoints Authority (ICA) at Woodlands Checkpoint detected anomalies in their Malaysia visas, the authority said in a media release on Monday.
AdvertisementTwo of the men, 26-year-old Nalliah Selvamany Rohan (Rohan) and 23-year-old Kanthanadan Jasitharan (Jasitharan), had sought the assistance of an agent in Sri Lanka known as Rajanikanth to help them find jobs outside Sri Lanka.
Rajanikanth arranged for their trip to Malaysia through Singapore for a price of 305,000 Sri Lankan rupees (about S$2,600) each. All three arrived in Singapore on Jun 18 this year.
After their arrival, Rajanikanth collected Rohan and Jasitharan’s passports.
The passports were affixed with forged Malaysia visas when they were returned to them, said ICA.
AdvertisementAdvertisementSimilarly a third man, 20-year-old Roopan Diasrepinsan (Roopan), also approached an agent - known as Dinesh - to help him go to Malaysia for a fee of 500,000 Sri Lankan rupees.
Roopan arrived in Singapore on Jun 26, and his passport was handed over to a man believed to be "working in cahoots" with Rajanikanth to obtain the forged Malaysia visas, said ICA.
On Jun 27 at about 8pm, Rajanikanth arranged for a Malaysia taxi to send Rohan, Jasitharan and Roopan to Malaysia.
However, when the three men were departing Singapore at Woodlands Checkpoint, officers conducted further checks and arrested them after detecting anomalies in their Malaysia visas.
Rajanikanth had left Singapore before investigations began, while evidence indicated that the Malaysian taxi driver was uninvolved in this scam, said ICA.
"The ICA takes a serious view of persons possessing a false travel document or abetting others to be in possession of one," the authority added.
If convicted, a person knowingly in possession of a false foreign travel document may be fined up to S$10,000 or jailed up to 10 years, or both.
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